Small business owner helps make Orlando a center for health care firms.

ORLANDO – Economists have estimated that health care will remain the strongest growth industry in the nation, along with education.
They’ve also suggested that when jobs start to return, they won’t come from large corporations looking to go on a hiring spree, but from small start up firms that will lead the way instead.
With that in mind, Darren Hollander may already be ahead of the curve.
Hollander moved to Orlando to establish his own medical practice. A chiropractic physician, Dr. Hollander runs Orlando Family Chiropractic at 500 N. Mills Ave. He’s been building up the practice by treating not only the aches and pains that his patient come to him complaining about, but also their nutritional and lifestyle needs as well. Too many physicians today, he said, rely on medication as a way to treat what’s making their patients ill. Hollander takes a different approach.
“Chiropractors view medication as being necessary in critical situations,” he said. “But if you have a non-critical, non-emergency situation, we encourage people to try the least invasive treatment possible.”
He noted as an example that chronic and lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and heart disease “can be greatly influenced by lifestyle choices.”
Patients can manage their disease – and even prevent it in the first place – by becoming “well versed in nutrition and wellness,” he said. “They need to do things like avoid transfats, which are hard to recognize in food, but are in anything that’s fried, like French Fries or donuts. Anything that says hydrogenated you need to avoid. When I make these recommendations, people can change their lives overnight by getting rid of these toxins in your body.”
In a city that remains a magnet for people born and raised somewhere else, the 29-year-old Hollander fits that pattern. He was born in New Jersey, but raised in South Florida.
He gravitated to the field of chiropractic medicine at a fairly early age, when like many of the patients who seek treatment in this field, he suffered a knee injury.
“It’s all my neighbor’s fault,” Hollander said of his career path. “My neighbor growing up in Coral Springs was a man named Harley Bofshever, and he was a chiropractor. He was like Superman to me.”
Bofshever had impressive healing abilities, Hollander said.
“I hurt my knee once, and my mom said chiropractors can fix your knee,” so he went to see Bofshever – and discovered relief for his pain, he said. That set off within the young boy a fascination with this field.
“I started to sink my teeth into chiropractic medicine,” he said. “He fixed my knee, he helped my back. He was my family doctor and became a close friend of the family.”
The more research he did on the field, the more Hollander felt it was the path he wanted to take. He attended college in Dallas, then moved to Orlando.
“It’s very unique,” he said of this field of medicine. “Compared to other fields, it’s very conservative, it’s non-invasive, and there are not really any side effects to chiropractic treatment. The only side effect is you just feel better. Someone might come to me with headaches, and I can look at their neck and see their neck is not moving well.”
A more traditional family physician, he said, might simply prescribe aspirins – take aspirins whenever you get headaches.
“The side effects of aspirin is you will have bleeding in your stomach,” he said. “So over time, if you keep taking aspirin, it can lead to stomach ulcers.”
A chiropractor, on the other hand, might look to see if the motion in the patient’s spine is contributing to their headaches or back pain.
“By improving the motion in your spine, you’re improving the information going through your spinal nerve,” he said. “You could be getting too much information in your spinal nerve. Or you could be getting the wrong information. We recommend everyone see a chiropractor to be sure your spine is moving properly.”
Chiropractic medicine remains controversial, something Hollander readily acknowledges.
“It is controversial among mainstream medicine and the public,” he said. “A lot of people just don’t understand what we do. It’s hard for people to grasp these things.”
One big difference, though, is that Hollander believes far too many physicians today are too quick to prescribe medications as treatments. Hollander is more likely to promote natural remedies that help the patient develop a long term pattern of good health, and not simply a quick fix.
“I’ll have a diabetic patient who thinks it’s okay to have pasta for breakfast,” he said. “Then they go to their doctor and get insulin, and have pasta for breakfast, pasta for lunch, and pasta for dinner. Then they come to me and I ask them about their diet.”
Hollander is happy to share his knowledge about healthy lifestyles through his web site, OrlandoFamilyChiropractic.com. He also plans to stick around for a while, since Hollander feels he’s found the perfect city to live and work in.
“I love Orlando,” he said. “I feel like Orlando has a lot of personality, more personality than South Florida. There’s a culture in Orlando. Downtown has a culture. Winter Park has a culture. And yet it’s still not a small town. It’s big – but not too big.”
To learn more about Orlando Family Chiropractic, call 407-479-8359 or email Dr.Darren@OrlandoProfessionals.net.

About Michael Freeman

Michael W. Freeman is a veteran journalist, playwright and author. Born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, he has lived in Orlando since 2002. Michael has worked for some of Florida's largest newspapers, including The Orlando Sentinel. His original plays have draw strong audiences at the Orlando Fringe Festival. He is the author of the novels "Bloody Rabbit" and "Koby's New Home."